The Walking Dead Season 2 Discussion *Spoilers*

I wonder how they will explain not telling the group about Sophia being in the barn. Someone other than Otis had to know. For one, the lady feeding the chickens to the horde. I do hope that this is addressed properly.

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It's possible that Patricia didn't see Sophia in the barn, based on her vantage point.

Gut instinct reaction, Shane did the right thing. If he woulda come to me as a character and expressed what he thought needed to be done, I would've probably supported him.

However, I have to look back at S1 and covering themselves in Zombie Guts to pass through a horde of hungry Zombies that didn't notice them.

Did Shane upset the Eco-system? The Farm was special in it's lack of Zombies, like there was a "Sonic Rodent Fence". Could it be rounding up the occasional Zombie and putting it into the "Stink Box" Barn has served as that "Sonic Fence". Zombies weren't attracted by the fresh meat, because the stench of all those trapped Zombies put off a smell that covered the Fresh Meat human smell, so Zombies weren't drawn there. Now, when the Zombie corpses are cleaned up, you no longer have that stench to cover the Fresh Human meat and maybe hordes will be drawn to such a large cache of fresh Human meat without competition.

Avoided the spoilers, but, was stupid enough to read the thread before watching the episode and spoiled myself (I kinda regret it ). However, I wonder, if I was so wrapped up in the shock of the twist, would I notice the possibility of the Eco-System possible upset? Even Spoiled, it was revealed awesomely

i don't think Hershel's attitude toward Walkers is all that unreasonable.

For one, he's a man of faith. He already belives in the dead rising. But now that it's happened to millions (which, by itself is a "miracle"). Why is it unreasonable that he'd believe a cure was possible? His is a religion of hope and new life.

Also, he mentioned what he saw on television, and how brutal that was. If anything was caught live like what we saw in flashbacks, Herschel may have also wanted to take a different view to not be like "those guys."

i can imagine that he saw infected-but-not-dead people being shot brutally shot by police or some other "authority" . Those were people who not only considered Walkers not human, but also lost their compassion for even the dying. If that's what he saw on TV.....

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On a different note. If we're assuming that everyone has the Zombie virus, that when you die, you become a Walker... one of the "side effects" is a regenerative power that works for most injuries (like gun shots & arrows) , but not against the Zombie killer bacteria. That's how a guy who was in a coma & dehydrated can make it out alive, or Carl & Daryl recovering in 2 daYA or Merle making it out... That's my quasi-serious fan theory on that.

On a different note. If we're assuming that everyone has the Zombie virus, that when you die, you become a Walker... one of the "side effects" is a regenerative power that works for most injuries (like gun shots & arrows) , but not against the Zombie killer bacteria. That's how a guy who was in a coma & dehydrated can make it out alive, or Carl & Daryl recovering in 2 daYA or Merle making it out... That's my quasi-serious fan theory on that.

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Actually that's not a bad theory. More importantly, it provides a plausible theory as to the origin of the plague in the first place.

I've always thought that one good rationale for a zombie outbreak is malfunctioning nano-bots that were designed as medical aids to keep people (most likely soldiers alive). The bots were designed to keep the host alive and mobile at all costs. The problem was that their programing was both good and flawed. The same directive that made them keep the host "alive" had the unintended consequence of killing the host. In order to stay mobile, the bots intern recognized that they had to take over the body's command center and thus assumes control over the brain. Equally significant is the fact that the bots, in order to constantly repair damaged tissue and keep the lumbering body functional would need constant injections of new organic material. In a living being this would not be a problem as it would simply eat what it needs, break down the components and the bots would use the materials to keep things moving. But since the nanobots killed the body, digestion and recirculation no longer occurs. Thus the machines program the whats left of the body to seek out healthy organic material similar to that of the host...in this case a healthy human. It tries to consume additional human material and tries to make repairs. Its never fully successful since the body is dead. The bots are just too dumb to recognize that their program has already failed...so they keep going until someone destroys the neural net put in place to keep the body mobile in the brain. This scenario also explains why the zombie plague is immune to traditional medicine. No doctor would have experience treating organic being suffering from a mechanical infection. Jenner could actually see what was happening but have no concept of how to treat the virus since what he was looking at was not a virus. Its the same basic premise as the medical nano technology that mutates humans into childlike monsters in "The Empty Child" on Doctor Who.

This concept makes zombies less a metaphysical menace, but one of human origin. The tragedy is that it was not even created as a weapon but a beneficial technology that was both imperfect yet worked a little too well.

If you think about it, the sluggish nature of the storytelling this season and the endless search for Sophia was actually necessary.

At the end of the day, Shane, in all of his wild eyed glory, ended up mirroring the impatience of the audience. Even within the world of TWD, a character was tired of looking for her. The story needed to drag this out in some way since the endless search for Sophia is a big part of what's been pushing Shane ever closer to the edge. Part of what makes Shane's character work is that he is more than just crazy, he is also right and the audience is made to agree with his arguments if only because him being right means that we can all move on.

Gotham Central wrote:
At the end of the day, Shane, in all of his wild eyed glory ended up mirroring the impatience of the audience. Even within the world of TWC, a character was tired of looking for her. The story needed to drag this out in some way since the endless search for Sophia is a big part of what's been pushing Shane ever closer to the edge.

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That's a pretty good point. Shane's impatience, Carol's resignation, Daryl's optimism (suddenly dashed)-- none of that would have been nearly as well-developed if they looked in the barn after, say, four episodes.

On a different note. If we're assuming that everyone has the Zombie virus, that when you die, you become a Walker... one of the "side effects" is a regenerative power that works for most injuries (like gun shots & arrows) , but not against the Zombie killer bacteria. That's how a guy who was in a coma & dehydrated can make it out alive, or Carl & Daryl recovering in 2 daYA or Merle making it out... That's my quasi-serious fan theory on that.

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I think that's been shown to not apply to the series. And the idea never made a lot of sense to me. Because, if everyone's already infected, why does the virus kill only after a bite? You're saying the bite introduces not a zombie virus, but a separate strain of zombie killer bacteria?

Anyway, never was a zombie plague portrayed as having any regenerative benefits whatsoever. Preservative? To a degree, yes. So sure, the virus animates dead flesh regardless of damage, but none of the damage is ever reversed. In living bodies though, it only works to kill.

Unless (OK, I'm starting to like the idea as I'm typing up this reply) the virus interacts differently with living tissue and aids the immune system, until the supposed bacteria are introduced. It could be a case of evolutionary progress gone wrong.

Oh, man, that sucked. I wish they didn't do that. All I can think of is that poor little girl running away down the hill with her doll in her hand...this one was really a wrencher.

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It didn't really affect me that way.

It was good from a dramatic sense because it shows that the program isn't going to shy away from killing regular characters, including kids. And the reveal was well done, even with the AICN spoilers.

However, Sophia's character wasn't that developed for me to find it "wrenching." Losing someone like Glenn or Daryl (who has probably the most interesting arc of the show thus far, going from "redneck jerk" to "the guy even the black character can count on") would bother me a lot more because the writers have made them worth caring about.

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She's a little girl. It's wrenching to even hear about some anonymous kid on the news. After all these characters invested so much in desperately trying to save her for all these episodes, it was pretty horrible knowing that she had died a terrifying death not long after the last time Rick saw her.

Did Shane upset the Eco-system? The Farm was special in it's lack of Zombies, like there was a "Sonic Rodent Fence". Could it be rounding up the occasional Zombie and putting it into the "Stink Box" Barn has served as that "Sonic Fence". Zombies weren't attracted by the fresh meat, because the stench of all those trapped Zombies put off a smell that covered the Fresh Meat human smell, so Zombies weren't drawn there. Now, when the Zombie corpses are cleaned up, you no longer have that stench to cover the Fresh Human meat and maybe hordes will be drawn to such a large cache of fresh Human meat without competition.

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Possible, but I don't see it as likely. Atlanta, the school they went to for medical supplies, those areas were crawling with zombies, but none wandered off in favor of better hunting grounds.

Easiest explanation is just that it's a rural area. Their sense of smell has to be limited, and when you've got miles of nothing around, nothing to draw you through all the woods and fields to that farm. Every now and then one wanders by, but just not in great frequency because it's so isolated. Even with the "sonic fence", they were still attracting attention occasionally, so it can't have been doing much to discourage them...

I agree that the ending was brilliant, in spite of the spoilers ... but my reason for thinking it was effective seems to be unique to me.

Shane isn't the Darwinian one, at least not in a conscious way. He's all for the hard tough-guy decision if it means killing anonymous walkers; he's as paralyzed as everyone else when it's Sophia, and it means re-killing her in front of her mother. In that sense, Herschel has the moral victory: his theory that there's a cure seems unlikely, but his point that walkers are our mothers, spouses, children, etc.? He's spot-on about that, and the hesitation of every one with a gun when Sophia lurches out the door testifies that Herschel is right, that there is a moral quandary here.

And then there's Rick, who answers Lori's faith that he is the kind of man to lead them, that Dale is wrong that this world is meant for someone like Shane. This world needs people like Rick, who can reinterpret the firing of a bullet as an act of compassion and not just fear or machismo. It also, paradoxically, points to the major theme of the last few volumes of the graphic series: can Rick make these decisions and still keep his soul?

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Shane's hesitation when it came to Sophia was one of the few things I had issues with at the end. He had been going on about writing her off for two episodes and he's the one that initiated the zombie massacre. It didn't make sense for him to freeze then. I think it was more plot driven to get Rick in that position of pulling the trigger. It should've been Shane.

Shane's hesitation when it came to Sophia was one of the few things I had issues with at the end. He had been going on about writing her off for two episodes and he's the one that initiated the zombie massacre. It didn't make sense for him to freeze then. I think it was more plot driven to get Rick in that position of pulling the trigger. It should've been Shane.

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I disagree. It had to be Rick. We needed to see that he can make the really hard decisions that Shane can't. Shane's no leader. Rick is. And that is why.

Shane's hesitation when it came to Sophia was one of the few things I had issues with at the end. He had been going on about writing her off for two episodes and he's the one that initiated the zombie massacre. It didn't make sense for him to freeze then. I think it was more plot driven to get Rick in that position of pulling the trigger. It should've been Shane.

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I disagree. It had to be Rick. We needed to see that he can make the really hard decisions that Shane can't. Shane's no leader. Rick is. And that is why.

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This. It really seems to me that much of the criticism the show has received this season is directed at the things it's doing really, really well. The pace of the search for Sophia is necessary to set up the horror of the ending; Shane's blowhard status is undermined by his hesitation when it comes to shotting a child that he knew. People can criticize the show because they actually want to be watching Resident Evil; that's fair. But the show doesn't want to be that, and it's very good at being something else: thoughtful, philosophical, willing to take its time to set up narrative pay-off.

Yes, once the reveal happened at the end the whole protracted search for Sophia made a lot more sense. My wife had been getting tired of it but once we saw how it ended we both agreed the setup was worth it for the payoff. Talk about a downer ending though.

Did Shane upset the Eco-system? The Farm was special in it's lack of Zombies, like there was a "Sonic Rodent Fence". Could it be rounding up the occasional Zombie and putting it into the "Stink Box" Barn has served as that "Sonic Fence". Zombies weren't attracted by the fresh meat, because the stench of all those trapped Zombies put off a smell that covered the Fresh Meat human smell, so Zombies weren't drawn there. Now, when the Zombie corpses are cleaned up, you no longer have that stench to cover the Fresh Human meat and maybe hordes will be drawn to such a large cache of fresh Human meat without competition.

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Possible, but I don't see it as likely. Atlanta, the school they went to for medical supplies, those areas were crawling with zombies, but none wandered off in favor of better hunting grounds.

Easiest explanation is just that it's a rural area. Their sense of smell has to be limited, and when you've got miles of nothing around, nothing to draw you through all the woods and fields to that farm. Every now and then one wanders by, but just not in great frequency because it's so isolated. Even with the "sonic fence", they were still attracting attention occasionally, so it can't have been doing much to discourage them...

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This. The farm was out in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore, it's been tacitly established that the zombie's sense of smell is limited to a few feet or yards (otherwise, they'd have smelled everyone under the cars in the first place). They aren't undead bloodhounds.

Shane's hesitation when it came to Sophia was one of the few things I had issues with at the end. He had been going on about writing her off for two episodes and he's the one that initiated the zombie massacre. It didn't make sense for him to freeze then. I think it was more plot driven to get Rick in that position of pulling the trigger. It should've been Shane.

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I disagree. It had to be Rick. We needed to see that he can make the really hard decisions that Shane can't. Shane's no leader. Rick is. And that is why.

Click to expand...

This. It really seems to me that much of the criticism the show has received this season is directed at the things it's doing really, really well. The pace of the search for Sophia is necessary to set up the horror of the ending; Shane's blowhard status is undermined by his hesitation when it comes to shotting a child that he knew....

...if everyone's already infected, why does the virus kill only after a bite? You're saying the bite introduces not a zombie virus, but a separate strain of zombie killer bacteria?

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Maybe the virus kicks in when a person is seriously injured. In other words, it's supposed to heal, but turns them into a zombie instead.

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From what I've read in interviews about the comic book:
1. Everyone is infected. Everyone who dies who isn't beheaded becomes a zombie.
2. Zombie bites are almost, but not always, fatal. Not so much because of the virus per se but probably because a zombie's mouth is made up of dead, rotting flesh full of all sorts of nasty germs.
3. Without adequate medical care that almost is definitely.